Weekend Feature: Norway's Global School

Teacher Else Mageroy has pupils spread around the globe. Her place of employment is at home in Volda in the county of Moere og Romsdal, but together with nine colleagues Mageroy teaches Norwegian children in 60 different countries. Teacher Else Mageroy has pupils spread around the globe. Her place of employment is at home in Volda in the county of Moere og Romsdal.

Mageroy is a teacher with the web based Norwegian Global School which serves Norwegian children in 60 different countries. She works with nine other colleagues based in different parts of Norway.'This job is incredibly exciting. I have learned a great deal about countries I hardly knew anything about', she says to Aftenposten's reporter Arnfinn Mauren.

'The challenge with this job is to give the pupils a worthy response to their work, both positively and negatively. It is also important they are given the correct quantity of work, not too much and not too little', she adds.

Since her pupils live in various time zones, they decide when their school work is done.

'We construct weekly plans and send them via the internet every Friday. Ten days later the pupils must have sent the completed work back', Mageroy explains.

The Volda teacher is one of ten part-time teachers who work for the Global School. These teachers work in Hamar, Egersund, Dragedal, Hornindal, Skjervoy and Sorum by giving lessons to pupils living in Bangkok, Perth, Montreal; San Francisco and 50 other places around the world.

The principal, Helge Standal says that the school has been built up gradually. During its first year of operation in 1998 the school taught 15 pupils in Years 6 and 9. Now it has almost 300 pupils in 60 different countries.

Most of the students attend the Global School as well as national and international schools where they live.

By communicating with texts, pictures and sound on the internet, the contact between teacher and pupil becomes frequent even though they never see each other face to face.